This invention relates to cashier exception report information systems for retail establishments, and more particularly, to a method and system for detecting merchandise under ringing and sliding by cashiers in retail establishments employing electronic cash register systems.
Typical electronic cash register data collection systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,189,607 and 4,502,120 which collect cash register data from a plurality of electronic cash registers at which cashiers are employed. Previously, exception report information systems for retail establishment have been known which used the electronically collected cash register data, and calculate the average transaction price for each cashier. Exception reports are then generated comparing the average transaction price by cashier. Additionally, the average transaction price is commonly calculated by store in a chain of stores. The exception report details any deviation of a cashier and/or a store beyond a normal deviation. The average transaction price for the individual cashiers is averaged to provide an average store transaction price. The individual cashier transaction prices are then compared to the store average. Any cashier who deviates more than 30% from the store average is suspect. This will identify a cashier who possibly is under ringing merchandise. Suspected under ringing can then be readily proven by an audit. However, the problem arises in that analysis of the average transaction price for the cashier does not take into effect the differences in the days and shifts which the cashiers work. The average transaction price may vary itself on the particular day and time of purchase. Also, the prior systems have not been satisfactory in detecting the sliding of merchandise. The sliding of merchandise means that the cashier passes merchandise through the checkout without ringing a price. When merchandise bypasses the cash register, there is no paper audit trail.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a method and system for detecting the under ringing and/or sliding of merchandise by cashiers at a retail establishment in an effective and reliable manner. In particular, an object of the invention is to eliminate the variances in the average transaction price of cashiers caused by time and shift differences to more reliably detect merchandise under ringing, and to provide a method and system for detecting the sliding of merchandise.